4 ways for-profit colleges could benefit from a new Trump term

营利性大学可以从特朗普新任期中受益的4种方式

For-profit college officials and their investors celebrated Donald Trump’s return to the White House, but the policies they favor may come with more strings attached than during his first term in office.

营利性大学官员及其投资者庆祝唐纳德·特朗普重返白宫，但他们支持的政策可能会比他第一个任期附带更多条件。

There will be similarities — Trump won’t be interested in limiting the growth of the for-profit college industry, as recent Democratic administrations were, and experts expect far fewer students who claim they were defrauded by for-profit colleges to have their loans forgiven. But there are likely to be differences, too. The traditionally conservative anti-regulation forces in Trump’s first administration will now have to contend with his pledge to hold accountable colleges and universities that get federal money. And while there could be a proliferation of for-profit, career-oriented programs, which Trump has signaled he favors, there may be more pressure on them to deliver on promises to help students get jobs.

将会有相似之处——特朗普不会像最近的民主党政府那样对限制营利性大学行业的增长感兴趣，专家预计，声称自己被营利性大学欺诈的学生将会少得多。贷款被免除。但也可能存在差异。特朗普第一届政府中传统上保守的反监管力量现在将不得不与他的承诺作斗争，即让获得联邦资金的学院和大学承担责任。尽管特朗普已经表示他支持的营利性、以职业为导向的项目可能会激增，但它们可能会面临更大的压力，要求它们兑现帮助学生找到工作的承诺。

Here are some areas that for-profits — and their critics — will be watching.

以下是营利性组织及其批评者将会关注的一些领域。

One of Trump’s most consequential moves during his first term was rescinding the Barack Obama-era gainful employment rule. That rule set a debt-to-earnings ratio that essentially required career-oriented programs to ensure their graduates could earn enough money to repay their loans. If they didn’t, the school could lose its federal funding — and 99 percent of the institutions that failed to meet that standard were for-profits.

特朗普在第一个任期内最重要的举措之一是废除了巴拉克·奥巴马时代的有酬就业规则。该规则设定了债务与收入的比率，本质上要求以职业为导向的项目，以确保毕业生能够赚到足够的钱来偿还贷款。如果他们不这样做，学校可能会失去联邦资助——99%没有达到这一标准的机构都是营利性的。

Joe Biden’s administration strengthened the rule, but approval dragged on through the rule-making process, with legal challenges and bureaucratic hurdles. Colleges were supposed to submit their final data in January 2025. In practice, gainful employment rules haven’t been enforced for eight years, and under Trump there is little chance Biden’s rules will be enacted.

乔·拜登（Joe Biden）政府加强了该规则，但在规则制定过程中，由于法律挑战和官僚障碍，批准被拖延。大学本应在2025年1月提交最终数据。实际上，有酬就业规则已经八年没有执行了，在特朗普的领导下，拜登的规则被颁布的可能性很小。

But instead of ripping up the rules as Trump’s appointees did last time, it’s possible that an effort to hold all colleges to some kind of performance standard could make its way through Congress. Some leaders in the for-profit industry support that.

但与其像特朗普任命的人上次那样撕毁规则，不如让所有大学遵守某种绩效标准的努力可能会在国会获得通过。营利性行业的一些领导者支持这一点。

“We think a bad outcome would be to simply withdraw all of the Biden-era regulations relating to for-profit schools,” said Jason Altmire, CEO and president of Career Education Colleges and Universities, the leading industry group representing for-profit career colleges, and a former Democratic member of Congress from Pennsylvania. “We don’t want the end result to be that we keep playing the same game of ping-pong back and forth, where each subsequent administration imposes new regulations and then the new administration comes in and withdraws them.”

代表营利性职业的领先行业组织职业教育学院和大学首席执行官兼总裁杰森·阿尔特迈尔(Jason Altmire)表示：“我们认为，糟糕的结果将是简单地撤销拜登时代与营利性学校相关的所有法规。”学院，以及来自宾夕法尼亚州的前民主党国会议员。“我们不希望最终的结果是我们不断地来回玩同样的乒乓球游戏，随后的每一届政府都实施新的法规，然后新政府上任并撤回它们。”

If the pro-regulation forces win, the next battle will be over what gets measured to determine colleges’ eligibility for federal aid — graduation rates, debt levels, income and/or job placement. Some public community colleges tend to have low graduation rates, for example, but they are inexpensive, so their student debt levels are very low, especially compared to for-profit programs.

如果支持监管的力量获胜，下一场战斗将是如何衡量大学是否有资格获得联邦援助--毕业率、债务水平、收入和/或就业安置。例如，一些公立社区学院的毕业率往往很低，但它们的价格很便宜，因此它们的学生债务水平非常低，特别是与营利性项目相比。

“We see a disproportionate amount of student debt held by students who are coming out of the for-profit sector,” said Amber Villalobos, a higher education fellow at the progressive think tank The Century Foundation. “Specifically students of color and students from low-income backgrounds; we know that these students tend to be overrepresented in for-profit colleges, which is where we’re more likely to see students pulled into high-cost but lower-value programs.”

进步智库世纪基金会的高等教育研究员Amber Villalobos说：“我们看到，来自营利性部门的学生持有的学生债务比例过高。”“特别是有色人种的学生和来自低收入背景的学生;我们知道这些学生在营利性大学中的比例往往过高，这是我们更有可能看到学生被拉入高成本但低价值的项目的地方。

Related: Interested in innovations in the field of higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly Higher Education newsletter.

相关：对高等教育领域的创新感兴趣？订阅我们的免费双周高等教育通讯。

An analysis of the most recent federal data by The HEA Group, a research organization, looked at 3,887 higher education institutions and found that students at 305 of them were, on average, making less than 150 percent of the poverty-line income ($21,870 a year) 10 years after they enrolled. And 86 percent of those whose students were not hitting the benchmark were for-profit certificate programs.

研究机构HEA集团对3,887所高等教育机构的最新联邦数据进行了分析，发现其中305所学校的学生在入学10年后的平均收入不到贫困线收入（每年21,870美元）的150%。86%的学生没有达到基准是营利性证书课程。

Industry representatives have objected to those measurements, however; they argue that in some occupations in which for-profits play a prominent role, such as cosmetology, employees rely heavily on tips, which may not get reported as income.

然而，行业代表反对这些衡量标准;他们认为，在一些营利性占主导地位的职业中，如美容师，员工严重依赖小费，而小费可能不会被报告为收入。

Another Obama-era initiative, one that critics credit with curbing some of for-profit colleges’ worst practices, is known as borrower defense. The rule allows for loan forgiveness for students who attended colleges that defrauded them; the majority of colleges found liable were for-profits. Under the first Trump administration, borrower defense wasn’t abolished, but then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos repeatedly put roadblocks in front of students seeking debt relief. That left a huge backlog of cases for the Biden administration. Hundreds of thousands of borrowers entitled to relief are still waiting to have their cases put through the system, and student debt advocates expect the incoming administration to move slowly on these and future cases.

奥巴马时代的另一项举措被称为借款人防御，批评人士认为这一举措遏制了一些营利性大学的最坏做法。该规定允许那些在欺骗他们的大学就读的学生获得贷款豁免;大多数被发现负有责任的大学都是营利性的。在第一届特朗普政府下，借款人辩护并没有被废除，但当时的教育部长Betsy DeVos一再在寻求债务减免的学生面前设置路障。这给拜登政府留下了大量积压的案件。数十万有权获得救济的借款人仍在等待他们的案件通过该系统，学生债务倡导者预计即将上任的政府将在这些和未来的案件上缓慢行动。

“Borrower defense can’t really be made to go away, but it can be made inaccessible or extremely difficult,” said Eileen Connor, president and director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending.

掠夺性学生贷款项目的总裁兼主任艾琳·康纳说：“借款人的辩护不能真的消失，但它可以变得难以接近或极其困难。”

During the election campaign, Trump promised to reform college accrediting bodies — the nonprofit organizations nominally overseen by the federal government that are supposed to guarantee the quality of higher education institutions and act as gatekeepers to federal student aid. He wants to make it easier for new accrediting bodies to be created.

在竞选期间，特朗普承诺改革大学认证机构-名义上由联邦政府监督的非营利组织，应该保证高等教育机构的质量并充当联邦学生援助的看门人。他想让新的授权机构更容易创建。

“Our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system,” Trump said in a campaign video. “The accreditors are supposed to ensure that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers, but they have failed totally.”

“我们的秘密武器将是大学认证系统，”特朗普在竞选视频中说。“认证机构本应确保学校不会欺骗学生和纳税人，但他们完全失败了。”

In addition to firing “the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics,” he said he wanted to ensure that colleges are “offering options for accelerated and low-cost degrees [and] providing meaningful job placement and career services.”

除了解雇“激进的左派认证者，他们让我们的大学成为马克思主义狂热者和疯子的主导”，他说他希望确保大学“提供加速和低成本学位的选择[并]提供有意义的就业安置和职业服务。

“Folks around the Trump campaign and Trump himself recognize the accreditors as a central problem,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. “The current accreditation system is a cartel that protects institutions but excludes newer institutions that might be more innovative.”

保守派智库美国企业研究所的高级研究员普雷斯顿？库珀（Preston Cooper）表示：“特朗普竞选团队和特朗普本人都认为，认证机构是一个核心问题。”“目前的认证体系是一个卡特尔，保护机构，但排除了可能更具创新性的新机构。”

While the existing accreditation system has detractors on the left and the right, some critics worry that new accreditors wouldn’t properly scrutinize for-profit colleges; Trump’s first administration, for example, reinstated a previously disqualified accreditor.

虽然现有的认证系统在左翼和右翼都有批评者，但一些批评者担心新的认证机构不会对营利性大学进行适当的审查;例如，特朗普的第一届政府恢复了先前被取消资格的认证机构。

“The regulatory environment, the pressures for colleges to create new programs that will expand their enrollment, creates sort of like a perfect storm for more students to go to predatory for-profit colleges that won’t have the same level of oversight,” said Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, the investigations manager on the higher education program at the liberal think tank New America.

“监管环境，大学创造新项目以扩大招生的压力，为更多的学生创造了一场完美的风暴，让他们去掠夺性的营利性大学，这些大学不会有同样的监督水平，”自由派智库新美国高等教育项目调查经理杰里米·鲍尔-沃尔夫说。

Related: Settlement will wipe $6 billion in student loan debt — but not for these borrowers

和解将消除60亿美元的学生贷款债务-但不适用于这些借款人

Indeed, publicly held companies that own for-profit colleges saw a boost in stock prices in the wake of the election.

事实上，拥有营利性大学的上市公司在大选后股价上涨。

“Institutional investors that might have been reluctant a few weeks ago to invest are starting to look at the sector a little bit more favorably,” said Jeffrey Silber, senior analyst in BMO Capital Markets Equity Research. “There’s always been some private equity firms in this space, but under the Obama administration, many of them pulled back. I saw a little bit of that under Biden as well. I could see some of those folks coming back to the table too.”

BMO资本市场股票研究高级分析师杰弗里？西尔伯（Jeffrey Silber）表示：“几周前可能还不愿投资的机构投资者开始对该行业更加看好。”“在这个领域一直有一些私人股本公司，但在奥巴马政府的领导下，他们中的许多人都退缩了。我在拜登的领导下也看到了这一点。我可以看到其中一些人也回到了谈判桌上。”

While for-profit four-year colleges only enroll about 5 percent of college students, their enrollment increased by 8 percent between 2021 and 2023, and preliminary enrollment for showed another 5 percent gain this fall.

虽然营利性四年制大学仅招收约5%的大学生，但其入学人数在2021年至2023年间增加了8%，今年秋季的初步入学人数又增加了5%。

The real growth, however, in the coming years could be in shorter-term, job-oriented certificate programs. The Trump administration has signaled that it will prioritize higher education that is primarily job-focused, which could loosen up both state and federal streams of funding for the for-profit sector.

然而，未来几年真正的增长可能是短期的、以就业为导向的证书课程。特朗普政府已经表示，它将优先考虑主要以就业为重点的高等教育，这可能会放松州和联邦对营利性部门的资金流。

Trump’s nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon, is a proponent of what’s known as “short-term Pell.” Pell Grants, which most low-income families use to pay for college, can currently be used only for education programs that last 15 weeks or more (about one semester).

特朗普提名的教育部长琳达·麦克马洪（Linda McMahon）是所谓的“短期佩尔”的支持者。佩尔助学金，大多数低收入家庭用来支付大学费用，目前只能用于持续15周或更长时间（约一个学期）的教育项目。

McMahon supports a bill, which has some bipartisan support, that would allow federal aid dollars to pay for short-term programs that train students for high-demand jobs. Critics worry the program could be used to support shorter programs run by for-profit companies that deliver poor results for students; a recent report showed no improvement in employment for students who used short-term Pell in a pilot program. But there is a push to attach some strings to the federal funding, including graduation and job placement requirements.

麦克马洪支持一项得到两党支持的法案，该法案将允许联邦援助资金支付培训学生从事高需求工作的短期项目。批评人士担心，该计划可能被用来支持营利性公司运营的较短项目，这些项目对学生来说效果不佳;最近的一份报告显示，在试点项目中使用短期佩尔的学生的就业情况没有改善。但有一个推动附加一些条件的联邦资金，包括毕业和就业安置的要求。

Related: Trump picks Linda McMahon to lead, and possibly dismantle, Education Department

相关：特朗普选择琳达麦克马洪领导，并可能拆除，教育部

For-profits’ stakes for all these policies are high. The industry has spent more than $6.6 million on lobbying this year, according to campaign finance data provided by OpenSecrets.org.

所有这些保单的盈利风险都很高。根据OpenSecrets.org提供的竞选资金数据，该行业今年在游说方面花费了660多万美元。

For the most part, experts expect the Trump administration to aim its fire at selective, nonprofit and public four-year colleges. He has threatened to withhold funding from universities he says are indoctrinating students into a “woke” ideology. Some in the for-profit sector say the same regulations that were used against them could be aimed at other higher education institutions.

在大多数情况下，专家们预计特朗普政府将把火力瞄准那些选择性的、非营利性的和公立的四年制大学。他威胁要停止向大学提供资金，他说这些大学正在向学生灌输“觉醒”的意识形态。营利性部门的一些人表示，针对他们的相同法规可能针对其他高等教育机构。

“We were the politically unpopular schools,” said Altmire of the for-profit group Career Education Colleges and Universities. “In a new administration, there are other schools that might find out that having the ability to weaponize regulations against politically unpopular schools is not something that they would be happy with.”

“我们是政治上不受欢迎的学校，”营利组织职业教育学院和大学的阿尔特迈尔说。“在新一届政府中，还有其他学校可能会发现，有能力将针对政治上不受欢迎的学校的规定武器化，这不是他们所愿意看到的。”

Contact staff writer Meredith Kolodner at 212-678-4152 or kolodner@hechingerreport.org.

联系工作人员作家Meredith Kolodner，电话212-678-4152或kolodner@hechingerreport.org。

This story about for-profit college was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger Higher Education newsletter.

这个关于营利性大学的故事是由赫钦格报告制作的，赫钦格报告是一个非营利性的独立新闻机构，专注于教育中的不平等和创新。注册Hechinger高等教育通讯。